Katy Perry still waiting approval from Vatican to turn convent into new home

Katy Perry is still waiting the Vatican to approve her plans to turn a former Roman Catholic convent into her new home.

For the past two years Perry had been embroiled in the row over the ownership of the eight-acre property in Los Feliz. Perry initially thought that she would be able to buy the former convent from the archdiocese of Los Angeles, run by Archbishop Jose Gomez, and made a $14.5 million (£9.3 million) bid. However, the five nuns living in the property at the time deemed that Perry would be an unsuitable owner and pushed to to sell it to businesswoman Dana Hollister instead, who wanted to turn it into a hotel. A local Catholic archbishop then argued that it was him and not the nuns who owned the property and that it was his wish to sell the property to Perry.

Back in March, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge sided with Perry, ruling that the nuns “did not have authority to sell the property to Hollister” and “nevertheless failed to validly consummate the transaction”.

It has now been reported that the Vatican is still yet to approve the sale and that the archdiocese needs to first find a replacement for the House of Prayer at the property. It’s not known how long this will take. “Nothing could be submitted to the Vatican until a suitable House of Prayer location is identified,” the archdiocese’s Adrian Alarcon told The Hollywood Reporter.

Previously, the nuns accused Perry of witchcraft, relating to her trip to the Salem Witch Walk in 2014. Sister Rose Catherine Holzman, 86, told the Daily Mail: “I’m sorry but I am just not into witchcraft and I am just not into people who are into witchcraft. It disturbs me, and that was our mother house and our retreat house and it’s sacred ground”.